Tag: International

I attended my second Morris Hayes concert featuring new songs for a global documentary called the World Symphony for Peace. It was held on February 10th, 2018 at a private residence in Chanhassen Minnesota. It was also streamed live on Facebook to attendees tuning in around the world.

The team is currently traveling around the globe composing new songs through collaborations with global artists. The documentary follows Morris Hayes, keyboardist for Prince, on his quest to promote world peace through collaboration and the bridge of music. It is also an amazing story of responding to the loss of Prince by this tight-knit group of collaborators to continue spreading the vision of peace through music.

The event followed a similar format to the debut show I attended last winter. That write-up and images can be seen here: Opening show

This event also featured new songs that combined a string quartet that performed live arrangement with Morris Hayes on the keyboard playing to images and clips filmed for the documentary. The format varied between storytelling of the journies and with songs that were created in those locations.

It has been a fantastic opportunity to meet the people involved with this initiative and to be able to catch several live performances as the group travels to see the progress in both the music and the message. This journey is far from over, so I encourage people to get engaged and support this initiative.

Internet of Things (IOT) continues to grow rapidly enabled by the internet, cloud computing, sensors, and cell phones. A rapidly growing subcategory is the Location of Things (LOT) with is expected to reach $71.6B by 2025. LOT is focused on connected devices enables connected devices to communicate their geographic location. This is creating new forms of big data and analytics that many companies are eager to collect and leverage. North America and Europe accounted for the majority share in the location of things markets today but Asia is growing rapidly.

Apple has enjoyed access to the Chinese market in where other major use companies like Facebook and Google have been blocked. Now China is taking a closer look at how Apple is competing within its market. Developers have enjoyed building local apps for the Chinese markets. Now threats are coming from multiple sides. A law firm representing several dozen developers have asked the Chinese government to look to see if Apple is violating and anti-trust laws or regulatory pricing in the app store. Large internet giant company, Tencent Holdings, has also had public friction with Apple. Local device manufacture’s devices are scavenging market share as Apple has struggled to meet the demand from waiting consumers for new iPhones. This increased scrutiny has caused Apple to continue to shift its business model towards services vs. a primary focus on devices alone. If the Chinese government intervenes with new regulation or penalties to Apple it could set a new president for US companies to compete in China’s markets.

Minnesota successfully navigated the process to both re-joining the international expo community and now successfully securing a nomination entering bidding process targeting hosting the 2023 worlds fair. With the overall theme focusing on health and wellness, the critical next step is developing the proposal. Central to the proposal will be an infrastructure pitch showing the resources the region has to handle a worlds fair level crowd in terms of hotelling, transportation, and overall attractions. In addition, the region will be competing against other competitors to create a differentiated experience that makes world’s fair a historic event. The history of the world’s fair is full of precedent-setting experiences of technology, society, and culture. This will be Minnesota’s real challenge. Certainly, the fact we are already hosting super bowl level events suggests we have the basics of core infrastructure, but the differentiator will be the deciding factor. Do we have a public and globally recognized vision for our region? Are we leading the way in high growth industries and being the center of new and emerging industries? Are we looked to as a central player for innovation and solving tomorrow’s grand challenges? The bidding process will tell…

I was fortunate to be invited to a private event this weekend that featured a new global documentary called the World Symphony for Peace. This documentary has been launched by a close-knit group of music industry professional from the Minneapolis region and explores the power of music to cross-culture and promote collaboration. The documentary follows Morris Hayes, keyboardist for Prince, on his world tour of connecting and composing with musicians all around the world. The evening was hosted at the offices of a local digital consulting agency and gathered an intimate audience for the live performance featuring stories and music that will appear in the documentary. Morris opened the performance with both original compositions and some songs he had performed with Prince. During the break between each song, Morris would provide stories about his life, early bands, and how he met Prince and eventually became a part of his band. The show also featured some guest performances from fellow musicians and youth performances from friends. As the evening continued we were treated to images and stories of travels and collaborations with other musicians around the world and live performances of the, yet to be released, tracks that will be in the documentary movie and album. The music was rich and innovative as it was a product of people that came from different cultures, languages, generations, and musical styles. These original compositions demonstrated the potential of what could be created and the power of music unite peoples. I look forward to following the continued work on this documentary as their tour continues to other destinations around the globe and the eventual release of the movie and album. This is a very innovate project in terms of what they are creating and the approach they are taking to connect people from around the world. This story is also a great case study of innovation and pivoting after an unexpected disruption. With the passing of the artist Prince, his band members had to choose a new path forward and re-invent themselves. How would they continue in not only their careers but in the contribution they would continue to make to the world.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the 2017 budget included an Innovation and Skills Plan. This is a bold and visionary plan for the development of the country. It is driven by concerns for the stability of the USA as a long-term trading partner and focuses on building the necessary assets required to be a leading country in tomorrow’s global innovation economy. The future state plan is multi-faceted targeting major investments in the development of their ecosystem around six superclusters and emerging industries. It also incorporates the building of new education offerings around lifelong learning for both the current workforce and next generation of students and workers. While many regions around the world are working on their regional cluster strategies, this marks a leading trend of county-wide strategies targeting the development and integration of cross-region assets into superclusters.

Here is a quick summary of the budget announcement.

Proposed industry efforts include:

$950 million CAD ($709.8 million USD) over five years to develop superclusters in six key national industries:

advanced manufacturing

agri-food

cleantech

digital industries

health/bio-sciences

clean resource

(+ 7. emerging AI cluster)

$50 million CAD ($37.4 million USD) to launch Innovative Solutions Canada. This is a government procurement program modeled after the United States’ Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

$400 million CAD ($298.9 million USD) over three years to help drive investment in growth-stage companies. Through the Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative (VCCI), the Business Development Bank of Canada would make late stage venture capital deals with the intent of stimulating co-investment from the private sector. The government hopes to unlock nearly $1.5 billion CAD ($1.1 billion USD) in private sector investments through these efforts.

Proposed education and research efforts include:

$3.1 billion CAD ($2.3 billion USD) for research and research training – e.g., scholarships, fellowships, research grants, and support for the overhead costs associated with federally funded research conducted in post-secondary institutions.

$741 million CAD ($553.3 billion USD) for investments to accelerate infrastructure projects at universities and colleges and affiliated institutions through the Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund.

$340 million CAD ($253.9 million USD) in planned support for equipment and facilities for post-secondary institutions, research hospitals, and other not-for-profit institutions.

$158 million CAD ($118 million USD) for several of the country’s public-private partnerships such as Mitacs, Genome Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Stem Cell Network, the Institute for Quantum Computing, Brain Canada and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Proposed Workforce efforts include:

$454.4 million CAD ($339.3 million USD) over four years, starting in 2018–19, and $46.3 million CAD ($34.6 million USD) per year thereafter, to help Canada’s middle-class workers find and keep good jobs.

$225 million CAD ($168 million USD) over four years, starting in 2018–19, and $75 million CAD ($65 million USD) per year thereafter, to establish a new organization to support skills development and measurement in Canada.

$221 million CAD ($165 million USD) over five years to fund up to 10,000 work-integrated learning placements for post-secondary students and graduates each year.

$186 million CAD ($138.9 million USD) would be provided to support other, unspecified research and development and related scientific activities in the higher education sector.

$7.8 million over two years to implement a new visa program that would allow certain skilled workers to obtain a work permit.

$50 million CAD ($37.4 million USD) for a new initiative – Coding Kids. The new two-year initiative would help teach Canadian children how to code to help prepare them for future IT-related careers.

The past year involved a great number of international conversations they were exploring investment and practices in innovation centers in the United States with the goal to integrate them to centers back in the country of investment origin. Much of the drivers were to build a sustainable bridge of industry collaboration around innovation between the two countries and to integrate education offerings to develop new workforce skill sets.

Here is a quick list of international discussions covered in prior blogs: